From economics to data science for government : a (long) journey

From economics to data science for government : a (long) journey

My story (in short)

1. Graduate/PhD Student in Economics at PSE/CREST
2. Data journalist at Ask Media
3. Data scientist at Etalab

I was interested in

1. applied econometrics/evaluation of public policies
2. labor economics/economics of education
3. political economy
4. …

Sources of inspiration

• Joshua Angrist : IV models, etc
• Charles Manski : Identification problems for the social sciences
• Eric Maurin :
• Andrew Gelman :
• Gary King : developing statistical methodes but also software !

My research

• The impact of the thresholds of 10, 20 and 50 employees on the size of French companies
• Le Polimètre (France, 2007) : analysing political behavior using quiz data
• Estimating incumbency advantage in French elections

Teaching was a great experience

I’ve been teaching at Cachan :

• econometrics
• statistics
• game theory
• decision theory
• growth theory

Why did I not finished py Phd ?

• too curious, not enough focus.
• without deadline, procrastination can be infinite !
• isolation : I wanted to learn by myself, instead of asking others.

3 tips for not giving up your doctorate

• stay focus on your research/papers. Don’t be too curious.
• learn from others/ don’t try to learn everything by yourself
• do things you can do. Don’t try to do what you can’t do.

There is a life out of the lab

Econometrics use data but around 2012, many other fields use data :

• emerging field of data science / data in the business life
• data journalism
• open data : civic use of data

How to find a job when you leave research

• Attend meetups : data tuesdays
• Attend hackathons/open data camps
• Participate to non profit organization : Open knowledge foundation
• Write emails to interesting people and meet them

What is data journalism ?

What is data journalism ? (last)

• Using data to produce meaningful facts for the media
• Go beyond anecdotal information
• Tell data stories using data visualisation

How I got hired in 1/2 hour without applying for any job offer

Hi, I’m interested in what you do. I’d be happy to talk with you.

• After 1/2 hour discussing with Ask Media team, they offered me a job.
• I had my first employment contract without ever applying for a job offer !

What was Ask Media ?

• a media agency working with newspapers such as Le Parisien, Paris Match, La Tribune, etc
• a small team of journalists, graphists, web developers
• specialized in : infographics, data visualisation, data journalism and explainers.

What have we done at Ask Media ?

Inspiring figures in the field of dataviz / datajournalism

• Mike Bostock and The Upshot
• Emile Cheysson : unknown French pionneer
• Edward Tufte : The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
• John Burn-Murdoch (FT Interactive) : Visual vocabulary
• …

Next step

Data scientist at Etalab

What is Etalab ? (in short)

• French government’s open data team
• but also : open government
• and … data science team

What is a data scientist ?

What is a data scientist ?

Data scientists want to build things, not just give advice. One describes being a consultant as “the dead zone.”

Thomas H. Davenport and D.J. Patil

What is a data scientist in the government ?

• Using a predictive algorithm to improve the probability to find illegaly converted buildings
• MODA 2013 Annual report

Why is it so nice to work at Etalab 1/2 ?

1. People are autonomous : we have a great freedom in what we do
2. People who are not afraid to learn : we are not specialists of everything but we are willing to learn
3. People have values : many of us are engaged in free knowledge, open data movement, etc
4. People are willing to debate together, learn from others, etc : many discussions inside of the team

Why is it so nice to work at Etalab 2/2 ?

1. Everyone has specific skills : data science, full stack development, legal skills
2. But everyone do much more than its area of expertise

How do we work at Etalab ?

1. maker way : develop products and tools
2. legal way : drafting the law, defining a policy
3. people way : supporting public administration and working with the civil society

What do we do at Etalab ? (long version)

• Developping products
• Writing bills
• Writing reports on data governance/data policy
• HData science and artificial intelligence for the public sector

Open data by default and data as a public service

• Free access to public data has now become the rule. Exceptions to this principle are now very strictly regulated.
  
• The Digital Republic Act (2016) has considerably expanded the range of administrative documents available online, moving from release on demand to open data by default (effective in 2018)
• Legal recognition to « reference data » (Digital Republic Act, 2016)
• 9 key datasets that are critical for the society and economy, including : Company Register (Sirene), Land Register (Cadastre), National adresses database, National directory of associations, etc.

Chief data officer report

Using data to improve public action

La Bonne Boîte

• 1/4 hiring is consecutive to a job offer
• A small algorithm predicting the number of hirings would help applying in the good company.
• Basically, we use past hiring as a predictor for future hirings
• Job seeker can easily get a list of companies where the have a probability to get hired.

Entrepreneur interet general

• A fellowship program.
• We select the best challenges
• We find the best people (developers/data scientists/designers) to take on the challenge
• They have 10 months to get results !
• It works for 3 reasons : deadlines, ownership, fellowship.

And now AI

Inspiring figures in the field of data science

• Mike Flowers for apply work at NYC
• Hadley Wickham for developing the tidyverse

See more

Twitter : https://twitter/pa_chevalier

mail : pachevalier@gmail.com

Github : http://github.com/pachevalier